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Papal succession

Cardinals question running of Vatican

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoEmilio Morenatti | Associated PressA man and woman talk in front of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Cardinals gathered at the Vatican yesterday for their final day of talks before the conclave to elect the next Roman Catholic pope.

VATICAN CITY — Roman Catholic cardinals gathered here to elect the next pope have focused on the
management of the Vatican, which by almost all accounts is deeply dysfunctional — and at worst
might have permitted criminal behavior.

The cardinals’ assessment of the inner workings of the Vatican could figure in whom they choose
to replace Pope Benedict XVI, church officials and analysts say. The debate helps explain why it
took so long to convene the conclave, the secretive meeting inside the Sistine Chapel where 115
cardinals will vote for a new pope. The conclave began today.

The power of the Curia, as the 4,000-employee Vatican bureaucracy is known, is legendary.
Traditionally, a cardinal who is a member of the Curia — holding a senior post in the Vatican — has
an edge as a candidate to be pope, or at the least the ability to be a kingmaker.

But in this papal transition, a searing air of questioning has emerged. It is no longer clear
that coming from the Curia helps one’s ambitions and, in fact, it could prove a liability.

Cardinals met yesterday in the last pre-conclave discussions.

Based on the sometimes-coded public statements of several cardinals, one of the main lines
dividing cardinals involves the demand for a shake-up of the Curia. The division pits prelates not
based in Rome against those who toil within the bureaucracy.

Many cardinals have said they want in their pope a stronger administrator who is attuned to the
pressing issues that dog the church and who can address corruption and mismanagement. Benedict,
while a brilliant theologian, was not sharp on the nuts and bolts of running the Vatican, tasks he
left to his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, widely seen as petty and
incompetent.

“There is no doubt that today there needs to be renewal in the church, reform in the church and
especially of government. How is this next pope going to govern the church?” British Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said. “There have been troubles in recent years, and scandals. Well, this
has got to be addressed, and especially the pope’s own house has to be put in order.”

The problems corroding the inner workings of the Vatican administration exploded into full view
last year with a torrent of leaks of private Curia correspondence and other confidential documents,
many straight from Pope Benedict’s desk.

His personal butler eventually pleaded guilty to having smuggled the materials to an Italian
journalist who published them in a best-selling book. Revelations portrayed a bureaucracy riven by
infighting, corruption and jealousies.

The portrait revealed the extent to which church officials were getting involved in for-profit
business opportunities throughout Italy and how negligence had allowed the Vatican bank to run amok
and possibly engage in money laundering. In addition, some of the documents accused senior church
officials of illegally rigging contracts for public works in the Vatican city-state.

Much of the blame for the mishandling of Vatican affairs has fallen on Bertone, but many of the
questions concerning the leaks have centered on Bertone’s archrival within the Curia, Cardinal
Angelo Sodano. (The two also competed for the primary role in the post-Benedict handling of the
church during this period known as the
Sede Vacante, the empty chair.)

At the cardinals’ session yesterday, Bertone addressed attempts to bring more transparency to
the workings of the Vatican bank, according to the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico
Lombardi.

Bertone is accused of using his position to fill Curia posts with supporters and restrict access
to the pope.

As for the leaks from Benedict’s inner sanctum, the pope ordered an investigation that he
entrusted to three elderly cardinals. They produced a 300-page report, which Benedict apparently
judged to be so explosive that he decided it should be locked away in a Vatican safe until handed
over to his successor.